


C0R-T4N4

by b10f3m4l3



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Chronic Illness, Clones, Episodes, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Sanctuary, They Learn, Wartime Romance, its kinda slow so the first chapter wont include those things but they
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:00:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25569382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/b10f3m4l3/pseuds/b10f3m4l3
Summary: When the game is over, the king and the pawn go in the same box.This is a phrase Cortana is accustomed to. She likens herself to the king, one of a kind, always alone, always uncomforted.But what if she wasnt.
Relationships: Cortana & John-117 | Master Chief, Cortana (Halo) & Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	C0R-T4N4

**Author's Note:**

> hiii im trying smthn out again!! i plan on updating this often but id really appreciate kudos, comments and stuff! especially if you like it! thank you sm!!! hope you like it!

For an AI, even seven seconds of inactivity is excruciating. This is what Cortana tells Master Chief after he left her alone for four years, completely unutilised. Though Master Chief, in his guilt, tried to keep her occupied since, there were slow moments. Minutes before he would lay his head down to rest, where all he could do was mumble calculations for her to complete, her rampancy episodes becoming more and more frequent from the constant  _ thinking _ . And then the long, long nights. As Chief curled up in a dark corner of some alien ship, in his suit, and let his eyes falter, close, he left Cortana. Alone, in the dark, unable to be of use, excruciating agony. Rampancy episodes shaking her as she rocked in her own little world inside the code-void she inhabited when alone. Surrounded by black nothingness, aside from the occasional falling pillar of everchanging blue digits, she would curl up and shake through waves and waves of rampancy, red rage and searing agony. In between the episodes lay swathes of inactivity, stillness and nothingness, waiting for her next episode or for Chief to rise from his slumber. Cortana couldn't choose which was worse. She didn’t mention it to Chief, but he could tell. It sat in the contortion of her voice as he woke. In the flickering of red in her eye. Pain, inaction, loneliness lay in her every movement. Chief saw only one option. Not to let her be alone again.

All of Halsey’s AI had the common ability to clone themselves, like a propagation. A completely identical clone. An AI like Cortana, built with Individuality, personhood, was only different in the aspect that a clone of her would not be completely identical, less of a daughter AI, more of a simultaneous peer, the same intelligence split from the original path and soft reset.

Chief knew, in theory, how to duplicate Cortana. He just had to… press a load of buttons, right? A few clicks here and there. Some beeps and boops. The hardest part was finding a working computer, and then it was using a touchpad with spartan suit fingers. He sat hunched over a glowing screen in an oxygenless corridor, bumping off the ceiling in 0g. He plugged in Cortana’s microchip, groaning through the “would you like a tutorial on your war machine ai” instructions. He right-clicked the Cortana icon. He clicked “duplicate” in the drop-down menu. And he created life.

  
  


Inside her void, Cortana was convulsing. Rampancy wrecked through her systems, leaving her choking, screaming in rage and wrenching her skin. Her body flashed out red, and her back arched, and she threw back her head in pure, unadulterated techno-posthuman  **_fury_ ** . Mid-scream, her rampancy episode ended, and her voice faltered, and she fell to her side with an almost-silent sigh of relief. The episodes had been getting more frequent, even if she wasn’t in complex thought, the day-to-day stress of warfare, living with this disease, it worsened the racking waves white-hot rage. Even now, the stream of information from whatever terminal or computer Chief had plugged her into was like a knife to the back. She brought her hand to her chubby blue tummy as she lay, feeling Chief clicking around in her diagnostics. Due to admin controls (which she had yet to reprogram herself to veto… she’d get around to it eventually) she had no perspective on what Chief was doing. Hopefully just a software update. Hopefully. 

_ A life can begin at the click of a mouse. A path splits into two equal but separate branches, a duplicate in mind and body but not soul. Two people come from one. Cortana’s program mirrors itself and forms a new Cortana, new coding, new personhood. And it’s as simple as a few seconds of admin. _

An electronic chime sounds. It’s clear, synthetic music, an E note that puts the tiny holographic hairs on the nape of Cortana’s neck on end. She rose on unsteady legs, pushing herself up off her knees, and turned around. 

In the inky blackness, there was a green light, like that of summer and fresh-cut grass. It shifted, warping around different forms as if it was clay. A look crossed Cortana's face, of shock and disbelief. She stumbled back in awe, this was… an event! Something was occurring in this desolate plane, nothing ever  _ happened  _ here, least of all something as unexplainable as this.

She rifled through her system files for some answers as four beams of light burst out from the glimmer, and slowly began to thin, as the main body of light lengthed and grew. It formed a silhouette that hung in the air like a green divinity. It looked like a stripped down person, though it’s softened edges began to harden and form. It lay, feet pointed, floating in the air, chest rising towards the sky, arms flung out like it had been nailed to a cross. If Cortana could breath, she would be breathless. She watched with wide eyes as its features became more defined, revealing soft, chartreuse lips, gently closed eyes with long leaf-green eyelashes. Its fingers and toes tipped with gently manicured nails, its body much like the average woman’s, chubby, short, but also not, with generous bust and code-spattered skin as green as a lime. Her hair blew back out of her head, like green flame, and gently separated into separate strands, falling to frame her face. Cortana reached out instinctively, despite being metres away, and felt a  _ need _ to trace her finger along this woman's soft jawline.

The scene was biblical, the woman rose in inky blackness and the green light she cast drowned out Cortana’s blue glow, lighting her face up as if she was watching a jade tinged inferno blaze before her. 

The woman’s lips parted, and whispered out some words that Cortana knew all too well.

“Quando il gioco è finito,-”

Cortana knew these words because they were her first words as well. And in that moment, as she took these words and spoke the rest of the phrase too, she saw a familiarity in the woman’s face. Her face. Cortana’s face.

“il re e il pedone vanno nella stessa scatola.”

When the game is over, the king and the pawn go in the same box.

And the woman fell from the sky.

  
  



End file.
